Scribbles
by icclenomi
Summary: Just a story about how Racetrack came to be a newsie following an incident that left a newsie injured, David finds out why Race is the most concerned.  No romance, no slash.  raceOC friendship.
1. Chapter 1

Scribbles

I don't own Newises, or any of the newsie characters. Only the ones who arent in the film.

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David never really knew Scribbles. He'd met her, talked to her, heard her name mentioned a few times in passing "Remember the time Scribbles…" you name it, she did it apparently, but he never got to know her. He felt out of place in this room at this point of time, the guys were sat on the floor in the lodging house talking about her. All of them, apart from Race. He just sat numbly on the floor, not even chewing on a cigar, it was this fact alone that let David know how worried he was. A quiet Race was a bad sign, and everyone knew it. If he could just get him talking, maybe it would all turn out okay… right?

"Race?" Racetrack turned his head at the sound of his name. "Race, I was wondering if you could… if you could tell me a bit about Scribbles…?" Race seemed to consider this over in his head as he turned his head back to look at nothing in particular.

"How much you wanna know?"

"However much you can tell me. I feel pretty bad being here… when I don't really know anything about her." Dave watched as Race nodded his head a little, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Dave could feel the eyes of a dozen newsies look from him to Race, the older newsboys seemingly grateful for his actions.

"I guess… I guess I'll start at da beginning- well as far back as I know anyhow…"

_1891 was one of the coldest winters I cen remember. I woulda been I think five years old and I didn't live here yet, I just sorta wandered around da streets beggin' for money. One time I picked da wrong person to beg and I got pushed down a bit too hard for my likin' by a real hoity toighty snooty little kid, about ten. So I, bein the great mind dat I was thought dat the best thing to do after bein pushed down would be to tackle da kid, you know, get 'im back a little. It woulda worked too, if he hadn't been twice my size and if his friend hadn't joined us. Dey got me pretty good, and left me sat next to da statue ova in front of da distribution centre. I didn't have a coat, and da ground was covered in snow up to my ankles at that point, and it was still snowin'- usually I could fend off da cold a little by keeping movin and stuff, but I just didn't feel like I could move at all- I thought for certain I was gonna die. Den dis goil turned up. _

"_Yous okay?" I jest looked at 'er as best I could. She was little, like me and she was holding a big pile of newspapers on her shoulder which she dropped to the floor wid a 'thump'. She bent her knees to look at me better. "I said 'yous okay?'" I tried to talk but it was like my throat exploded or somethin' and I started to see in grey. Afore I knew it, she was yellin to her friends to come over and I could feel myself bein lifted up into da air. Dats all I cen remember for a few days._

"So, the girl was Scribbles?" Dave asked, trying to make sure Race kept talking. He just nodded. Jack, hearing this crossed over to their side of the room.

"Yeah, I remember dat day. Dat was da day you turned up here." He put his arm around Race's shoulder, pulling him into a half-hug. "Boy you was so small- and dey got you real good, Kloppman thought you weren't gonna make it, dats how bad it was." Jack turned to Dave as he said this. "When Race said he was cold and didn't have a coat, what he shoulda said was dat he was in soakin wet clothes from bein in da snow, he didn't have a coat and da boys what soaked him flung his boots onto a roof." Dave couldn't keep the disgusted look from his face.

"You're kiddin'?" he asked in vain hope, but half the older boys in the room were shaking their heads at this.

"But if you think Race is little now, you shoulda seen him when he was younga!" Mush put in, earning him a slap on the head from Race. "Ow…"

"I was talking 'til people started to interrupt me." He gave the guys a pointed look before continuing.

_So, yeah. I was pretty beat up, but when I woke up a couple days later I was here. I gotta admit I was kinda freaked out at da start- da foirt person I saw was Jack, and a 9 year old Jack foirst thing in da morning is not a welcome sight, lemme tell ya dat. Anyway, da goil what found me, Scribbles, come into da room and tells me where I was and said dat she would pay for my lodging 'til I earned some cash. _

"_Yous'll sell papes wit me for a bit okay?" I jest nodded I think. She was a real boyish goil I 'member thinking. She didn't try to act like one, she wasn't pretendin to be one like some a da newsie goils- I think she was jest more comfortable in da clothes, and fightin and stuff. We went all over da place, all ova 'hatten. _

"_Do you think you cen cry?" she ast me._

"_Why would I wanna cry?" I thought it was a really stupid thing to ask._

"_Think about it, use yer brain. You's covered head to foot in bruises, yeh?" I nodded. "And you's small and have a big limp." Again I nodded. "Use it! You do whatever it takes to sell da papes, cuz at da end of da day, what we don't sell we gotta eat." She started to make sense. After we went back for da afternoon edition we jumped onto a wagon and hitched a ride to Sheepshead. _

"So it's all Scribbles fault then?" David grinned. "That you found something you love so much?" Race smiled.

"I guess." He seemed to realize he'd stopped talking and continued, "Anyways, stop interuptin me- you want da story or what? After a couple a years we was real close. Me an' her were sellin' partners…"

"But I thought you always sold alone…"

"Davy- we was seven. A seven year old sellin' alone is askin for trouble."

"Right, sorry."

_As I was sayin, we was sellin partners- sold at Sheepshead usually. I tell you though she saved my behind far more times than I think she let on. If I accidentally said the wrong thing, or acted the wrong way- you gotta know how to deal wid drunken men losin their money, it cen be real dangerous. One of dese times was when we was, I think, ten. I bet a dime on a hoss, wid really bad odds- I guess I had a feelin', because I won. Bein stupid I screamed it about waving my ticket in da air. Needless to say I got surrounded by some men who'd lost; who wanted my ticket. So Scribbles paid one a da kids who cleaned up after hosses to … 'accidentally' fling manure at a coulpe of da guys, grabbed my hand and pulled me away wid her._

"Manure? That's disgusting!" The boys in the house laughed, just as the door opened and Kloppman entered along with the doctor.

"Boys, I have some bad news."

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END OF CHAPTER- suggestions welcomed... even begged for! I had a vague idea about what I was gonna make happen, but I forgot what it was, so any suggestions are welcomed. (I promise to describe Scribbles in the next chapter.) 


	2. Chapter 2

Scribbles

I don't own Newises, or any of the newsie characters. Only the ones who arent in the film.

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"**Come on, goils! Time to carry da banna!" Scribbles yelled through the lodgings. "Now geddup before I start pourin' wadder on yous all." Groans escaped the mouths of several of the girls as they started rolling out of their beds. Scribbles, having been up for about fifteen minutes already, grabbed her cabbie hat and walked out of the house, shouting 'carry da banna!' as she went. She smiled to herself as she caught sight of the boys racing from their own lodgings and, calling out to Racetrack, she pulled her hat on and ran towards them.**

"**Hiya, Race." She greeted, "win anythin' last night?" He just looked at her darkly. "I guess not. Hey, lunch on me laters, yeah?" Racetrack reached out and began fiddling with her hat.**

"**You know, Scribbles. You really look far bedder when your hat looks like dis…" and in one fail swoop Racetrack pushed her hat down to cover her entire face. Letting out a playful growl, Scribbles ran after him shrieking. A couple of younger newsies gave them weird looks as she jumped onto his back, pushing his hat over his eyes.**

"**Hey! I can't see, Scribbs!! If I run into stuff it's gonna be all your fault!"**

"**Tell it to someone who cares." As they got closer to the distribution office they could hear yells of outrage.**

"**Scribb, whad's goin' on?" Scribbles craned her neck as much as she could to see.**

"**I dunno." She climbed off his back and ran into the crowd to find out what was going on. The first person she met didn't have a clue what was going on either so she fought her way nearer to the front, closely followed by Race.**

"**Ten cents! Dat's takin away either me lodgins or me dinna." At hearing this, Race grabbed Scribbles' arm and turned to the voice. It was a fairly tall newsie, one who lived in a lodging house a couple of blocks away, and he was wringing his hat violently in his hands.**

"**Hey, hey, hey, fella."**

"**Name's 'Hoops'."**

"**Racetrack." The newsie's face crumpled in recognition. **

"**Wow, it's an honna to meet ya." He took Racetrack by the hand and started to shake it.**

"**Dat's nice, what's goin' on?" Hoops' face fell,**

"**Dey've jacked up da price from fiddy cents to sixty per hundred papes." Racetrack's face fell. Although he was a decent newsie, he had been having trouble getting rid of his papers at the moment, and adding the extra money to the price meant he could lose a lot.**

"**You're kiddin'? Damn. Scribbs, we gotsta find Jack." Scribbles nodded in agreement and they began to fight their way through the crowd again towards the office. **

"**Nice meetin' you, Hoops."

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**

"It looks like this girl has been assaulted." The room sighed.

"Ya don't need a doctorship te work dat one out." Jack put angrily as Race sat by Scribbles' side.

"You misunderstand. I mean she has been assaulted…sexually." Silence. Race looked at Scribbles, then to the doctor.

"Ya telling me some scabba raped Scrib?" He was seething. "I'll soak 'em!"

"Race, we don't know who it was…"

"I don't care, I will soak em. If it takes me ten _yeahs_ I'll soak em. If it _kills_ me I'll soak em."

"Race, calm-" David tried, tears in his eyes.

"Don't tell me to calm down! Scribbles got raped! What part a dat don't you get?!"

Race by this point was on his feet, wringing his hat in his hands. He looked at Scribbles again, at her bruised face, and crumpled.

"Why would anyone wanna hurt 'er?" Jack, having dealt with Race before, took him by the shoulders with his hands and touched his forehead to the smaller boy's. "She... she… why?"

"I can't tell ya the ansa to dat, Race. I'se sorry. She don't deserve dat. No one does." Suddenly aware of the other boys in the room, Race started to walk out of the room closely followed by Jack, who turned to David and told him, "No one comes upstairs til I says, okay?"

There weren't any challengers.

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**Jack, Race, Les and Dave found Scribbles huddled up at the foot of the old statue. She had obviously spent the night there more than once.**

"**Scribbles?" Race bent down and lightly shook her.**

"**Hey, Race. How's it goin'?**

"**You know, da usual. Ready ta geddup?" She smiled at him and pulled her blanket off herself, turning it into a makeshift bag. Jack was the next to talk.**

"**So, you slept out here again?"**

"**Yeah. Dey got real strict at da girl's lodgin' and I couldn't pay. But hey, 'Car-pay Dee-em' right?" Race gave her a pat on the back, Jack gave a grin. David decided to speak.**

"**You know, we aren't soaking newsgirls-"**

"**If you're even suggestin' dat I sell-"**

"**Come on, Amine, you haven't eaten in-"**

"**I aint no scabba!" Scribbles pushed Dave and Jack decided to act, pulling Dave aside.**

"**Whad are you doin', Dave?"**

"**Jack, she hasn't got Kloppman and a whole lodging room full of people to help her- she needs to sell."**

"**Scrib's fine." Jack told him, "but you might not be if you say dat to her. I swear, you ask her to do dat again, I'll let her soak ya."**

"**You sure you's okay?"**

"**I'm fine, Race. Honestly. Just a bit-"**

"**Starved?" Dave put in. "You need to eat something, Am-" Scribbles didn't even look at David as she responded in an even voice.**

"**Call me dat, you won't leave dis square wid your kneecaps."**

"**Scribbles?"**

"**Dats bedda. Now are we goin' to Tibby's or what?**

**

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**END OF CHAPTER Not altogether sure why I stopped here... lemme know (suggestions!?!?!? pleeeeeeeaaaaasssseeee!) 


	3. Chapter 3

Scribbles

Sorry, I missed this of chapter 2…

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It was hard to pin point the exact age at which Scribbles began to sell papes herself. She had been, as a baby, attached to one of the newsies when they arrived at the Manhattan newsboy lodging house. He was her father- her mother, being only thirteen when she gave birth, didn't live past Scribbles' first hour on Earth. At first, the boy had carried her around with him, pretending she was his younger sister, but one night he disappeared, leaving her behind and the Manhattan boys swore that if they ever saw Score again they would soak him on sight. Despite these difficulties, Scribbles wasn't fazed; the past is the past. She lived in the newsboy lodgings until she was eleven, then she moved to the girl's accommodation a couple of blocks away due to her being "of a more mature age, and sensitive to…stuff."

The girl grew into a baby faced teenager, passing off as far younger than she was, and she used it to her advantage. She had ragged black hair, apart from the small clump that grew out as a dark red, which stopped at her rear, and she always tied it back with string, her hat keeping the whole mess out of her face. Her constantly grubby skin, which had an olive glow to it, was covered in tiny scars from whatever fights she had gotten into recently. Her eyes shone out of her head with a bright green and her nose was always black due to an unfortunate habit she picked up as a small child of rubbing the top of her nose with her fingers; when you're holding newspapers around all day has the tendency to leave your hands covered in ink.

Scribbles was never allowed to be independent when she was growing up- the boys made sure she was always selling with someone- usually two 'someone's. So when she found the boy, barely older than herself on that cold, freezing day she seized the opportunity to be practically independent- this boy didn't count as being supervision because he didn't know what he was doing. Finally she was free.

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NOW its the END OF CHAPTER seriously- feedback. I feed on feedback- please help save a nomi from starvation and leave me reviews. thanks. 


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